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Games keep freezing computer.

neon_bowser
By neon_bowser
in Troubleshooting
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Go to solution Solved by TTesla,

It won't ruin the computer will it? I'm fine with scrapping the card, but this computer is group used. And I've noticed it happening more frequently. Not so much sooner, just more often.

What? The problem your experiencing? If its happening more frequently then probably yes. For me the time it took for it to freeze decreased exponentially. So the decline was slow at first, then it would get more and more. :(

Posted

So recently, when gaming, my computer will freeze and repeat the last noise made after about 45 to 90 minutes of gameplay in games like BF: BC2 and BF3. Games like CS: GO, L4D2 and ARMA 2 (Days Z Mod) have seemed to run fine even after several hours.

 

My PC specs are as follows:

I have a Dell Inspiron 560 Mid tower Computer (whatever motherboard comes with it I don't know and can't find anything online about it.)

Stock Mobo

Stock HDD (Hitachi 500GB I think)

I replaced the stock RAM (3 sticks of 1 GB Samsung Memory) with G. Skill Ripjaws 8 GB (4 x 2) 1600MHz

Pentium Dual Core E5800 @ 3.20 GHz

An NVIDIA GeForce GT 440 1GB

300 Watt PSU

 

I've learned that over heating might be a factor and its possible with how bad this air flow must be in this case so I'm not ruling it out. I thought perhaps my PSU can't take it sometimes, it is rather small, but I don't actually know. Another thing I learned was people had trouble with games when their RAM clock speed and voltages were off so I went in to my BIOS and checked and it's set to 800 MHz, well under my RAM's rating, and I couldn't get in to change that. The letters are all greyed out. Does this mean I can't at all do anything about the RAM? And would that even be the problem? Thanks to anyone who can help.

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So recently, when gaming, my computer will freeze and repeat the last noise made after about 45 to 90 minutes of gameplay in games like BF: BC2 and BF3. Games like CS: GO, L4D2 and ARMA 2 (Days Z Mod) have seemed to run fine even after several hours.

 

My PC specs are as follows:

I have a Dell Inspiron 560 Mid tower Computer (whatever motherboard comes with it I don't know and can't find anything online about it.)

Stock Mobo

Stock HDD (Hitachi 500GB I think)

I replaced the stock RAM (3 sticks of 1 GB Samsung Memory) with G. Skill Ripjaws 8 GB (4 x 2) 1600MHz

Pentium Dual Core E5800 @ 3.20 GHz

An NVIDIA GeForce GT 440 1GB

300 Watt PSU

 

I've learned that over heating might be a factor and its possible with how bad this air flow must be in this case so I'm not ruling it out. I thought perhaps my PSU can't take it sometimes, it is rather small, but I don't actually know. Another thing I learned was people had trouble with games when their RAM clock speed and voltages were off so I went in to my BIOS and checked and it's set to 800 MHz, well under my RAM's rating, and I couldn't get in to change that. The letters are all greyed out. Does this mean I can't at all do anything about the RAM? And would that even be the problem? Thanks to anyone who can help.

 

So recently, when gaming, my computer will freeze and repeat the last noise made after about 45 to 90 minutes of gameplay in games like BF: BC2 and BF3. Games like CS: GO, L4D2 and ARMA 2 (Days Z Mod) have seemed to run fine even after several hours.

 

My PC specs are as follows:

I have a Dell Inspiron 560 Mid tower Computer (whatever motherboard comes with it I don't know and can't find anything online about it.)

Stock Mobo

Stock HDD (Hitachi 500GB I think)

I replaced the stock RAM (3 sticks of 1 GB Samsung Memory) with G. Skill Ripjaws 8 GB (4 x 2) 1600MHz

Pentium Dual Core E5800 @ 3.20 GHz

An NVIDIA GeForce GT 440 1GB

300 Watt PSU

 

I've learned that over heating might be a factor and its possible with how bad this air flow must be in this case so I'm not ruling it out. I thought perhaps my PSU can't take it sometimes, it is rather small, but I don't actually know. Another thing I learned was people had trouble with games when their RAM clock speed and voltages were off so I went in to my BIOS and checked and it's set to 800 MHz, well under my RAM's rating, and I couldn't get in to change that. The letters are all greyed out. Does this mean I can't at all do anything about the RAM? And would that even be the problem? Thanks to anyone who can help.

RAM speeds double so just multiply by 2 and that's your actual speed. So 800mhz is actually 1600mhz

There are 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary, and those who don't.

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I had an old computer, similar performance to yours. Had kind of similar problems. The problems your expriencing are what happended to me stage one. Then it got worse and worse, it would take less and less time for it to freeze. Eventually i would turn it on 10-15 seconds later it would freeze and restart, and restart, and restart. Never did find out what the probelem was. But i did take it apart and used the broken parts in a english project. Yes english, lol.

Double check everything, I am usually wrong.

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What are your temps when running games?

If you ever need help with a build, read the following before posting: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/3061-build-plan-thread-recommendations-please-read-before-posting/
Also, make sure to quote a post or tag a member when replying or else they won't get a notification that you replied to them.

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That's a rather low end pc to be running on that hardware mate. The psu wont be the issue if your lasting multiple hours before it dies. the ram will show 800Mhz because it's dual channel so that's fine, But being a pre build don't expect to have much freedom in the bios. I'ld say if anything if could just be that the hardware isn't up to games like that.

I've been playing these titles for a couple of months now so I can't imagine that it just can't handle it.
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I had an old computer, similar performance to yours. Had kind of similar problems. The problems your expriencing are what happended to me stage one. Then it got worse and worse, it would take less and less time for it to freeze. Eventually i would turn it on 10-15 seconds later it would freeze and restart, and restart, and restart. Never did find out what the probelem was. But i did take it apart and used the broken parts in a english project. Yes english, lol.

It won't ruin the computer will it? I'm fine with scrapping the card, but this computer is group used. And I've noticed it happening more frequently. Not so much sooner, just more often.
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The RAM doesn't increase to 1600MHz because its in "dual channel." It's because the RAM is DDR. Which stands for Double Data Rate. This means that any speed(500MHz for instance) will automatically double. So 500MHz would effectively be 1,000MHz. Typically, BIOSes will display RAM speed in the form of the effective speeds.

"It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brain falls out." - Carl Sagan.

"I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you" - Edward I. Koch

"I didn't die! I performed a tactical reset!" - Apollolol

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There may be a lot of dust built up in the system creating unstable temperatures. It may not be visable to you but in the heatsinks is where you need to look.

I regularly take out the gpu to clean it but the main place that seems to collect is the psu.
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It won't ruin the computer will it? I'm fine with scrapping the card, but this computer is group used. And I've noticed it happening more frequently. Not so much sooner, just more often.

What? The problem your experiencing? If its happening more frequently then probably yes. For me the time it took for it to freeze decreased exponentially. So the decline was slow at first, then it would get more and more. :(

Double check everything, I am usually wrong.

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Try a better power supply.

"It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brain falls out." - Carl Sagan.

"I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you" - Edward I. Koch

"I didn't die! I performed a tactical reset!" - Apollolol

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What are your temps when running games?

I had wondered about the heat myself so I started opening the side panel, and having a constant airflow from a fan into the case, when gaming. I then acquired speccy and watched my temps and never hit above 60° C for the CPU and 50° C for the gpu. The first day I had played for about 6 hours straight and had no problems. Today it lasted about an hour and froze like before. From the last time I checked, which was about 15 min before the crash, it hadn't even almost passed those temps above.
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What? The problem your experiencing? If its happening more frequently then probably yes. For me the time it took for it to freeze decreased exponentially. So the decline was slow at first, then it would get more and more. :(

Thanks for the warning, I'm making you best answer because I know to be careful now to not ruin the PC. But everyone helped, thanks guys!
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